


Prying Eyes and Reasons Why

by justafandommess



Series: The Years In Between [2]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Grand Theft Auto Setting, Fake AH Crew, Fake Character Death, Other, Trevor and Ryan are brothers, Violence, this is basically ryan's side of the story for the years in between
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-05
Updated: 2017-07-05
Packaged: 2018-11-28 07:32:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11413176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justafandommess/pseuds/justafandommess
Summary: Ryan ran away from everything. His home, his problems, anything that hit too close to his heart. It was how he became the Vagabond, after all. It was also how he lost the one thing most important to him.





	Prying Eyes and Reasons Why

**Author's Note:**

> If you're reading this and you haven't read The Years In Between, I suggest you read that first because the whole setting of the story will make more sense. So yeah, enjoy Ryan's side of the story and how he found his brother again.

Ryan looked back at his home, the place he had lived and grown for 18 years. It wasn’t anything impressive, just a small house in a sea of houses that looked the same. But Ryan couldn’t help the nostalgia that washed over him as he studied the small suburban house. He could remember all the memories he had here, the love that he grew up with. His little brother, sleeping in their shared bedroom. 

He reminded himself why he was leaving in the first place, why he had to do this. It wasn’t because he wanted to leave. He had to protect his family, the only people who had ever loved him. Because the people after him were bad. They would laugh as they slaughtered Trevor in cold blood. And he wouldn’t let them.

So he ran.

-

Ryan remembered his first kill. He would always remember his first kill. 

It was a few weeks after he ran away from home, after he had hitchhiked halfway across the country. He ended up in a shitty place called Los Santos, the streets smelled like trash and blood, and you couldn’t sleep without hearing the ringing sounds of gunshots.

Ryan had found a shitty hotel to stay at, not planning on staying in this city of crime for long. But then they found him.

Ryan didn’t remember who attacked first, him or them. He wasn’t stupid, he always carried a knife no matter where he was. So when the men sprung at him, he stabbed the first guy in the arm, relishing in the rush of adrenaline it gave him.

He spun around on the second man, brandishing his knife and sticking it right through the guy’s chest. He watched the blood spurt out in a comical way, and he pulled the knife out before turning back to the first guy. He stabbed him, over and over, feeling the blood spray up at him with each stab. By the time he was done, the two men were dead. And Ryan felt the guilt press at his heart, but he didn’t stop to think. He couldn’t stop, not when he knew there were more men after him.

For the second time in his life, Ryan ran. Leaving only “The Vagabond Was Here” scrawled in blood.

-

Years passed and Ryan never dwindled, always moving from job to job, making a name for himself. He was the ruthless killer, the Madman, the silent assassin. 

The Vagabond.

He wasn’t particularly proud of his line of work, but it paid well and he never looked a gift horse in the mouth. Besides, he was good at what he did. He had a success rate unmatched by others, a kill number too high to count. He was the one anyone turned to when they needed something done professionally.

But he was careful. He always kept the mask on, always made sure to hide the Vagabond outfit before going to his apartment. But somewhere, he messed up.

And now Geoff Ramsey was sitting in his living room.

“Hello there Vagabond. Do you prefer Vagabond, or does Ryan work better?”

"What do you want?” Ryan growled out, putting up his intimidating voice as a reflex. He knew he was fucked, but he wasn’t going to die without a fight.

“Mhm, not one for small talk then? Fine, we’ll get right to business,” Ryan watched as Ramsey leaned forward, placing his elbows on the coffee table and looking up at Ryan. He gestured to the chair next to him, and Ryan moved over cautiously. He didn’t sit down, just stared at the documents spread out on the table in front of Ramsey. His mind was reeling, but he kept an impassive look on his face as he observed the documents.

“Ever heard of the Fake AH Crew? Of course you have. We’re legends, and so are you. So we need you to do a job for us…” As Ramsey rambled on, Ryan tried to calm his beating heart. It was going to be okay. He was just going to do this job for Ramsey and his crew and move on.

“I’ll do it,” Ryan grumbled, crossing his arms and fixing Ramsey with the most intimidating stare he could. He smirked as he saw how Ramsey seemed nervous under his gaze. Maybe the infamous crime boss wasn’t as calm and collected as he seemed.

“Alright then, creepy motherfucker. I’ll leave the contact information and shit. The job is in a week,” Ramsey pushed himself up from the chair, fixing Ryan with a sarcastic grin before leaving the apartment with the click of the door. As soon as he was gone, Ryan sighed with relief and collapsed on the couch.

Before long, he was pulling up his computer. He had to make sure they didn’t discover his family, his brother. The people and past he had tried so hard to cover up, to hide from the prying eyes of the criminal world. It had taken so long, so many meticulous hours to delete Ryan Collins from the system and enter Ryan Haywood instead.

But as he checked, his concern only grew. Scrolling through school records and personal emails (which was probably an invasion of privacy but what the hell, he had done worse) only made Ryan grow more and more worried for his brother. Trevor had dropped off the map only a few months after Ryan had ‘died.’

Ryan spent hours looking over any records and security footage he could find, but he lost trace of his brother. Trevor was gone, and it was all Ryan’s fault. He shouldn’t have left all those years ago, he shouldn’t have left the most important thing in his life behind. 

And for the first time in a long time, instead of running, Ryan cried.

-

The job was simple. Infiltrate the base, kill the crew members, send a message. It was mind-numbingly easy, and Ryan was wondering why Ramsey had even hired him for this mission when he had many mercenaries that would work for less. But Ryan shook himself. Money was money, and being on Ramsey’s good side meant less a chance of getting murdered in the middle of the night. 

Ryan focused his attention back on the lock he was picking. He knew one of Ramsey’s best snipers was watching from the rooftops, and Vav was watching through the security cameras. Ryan picked the lock in record time, opening the door slowly and slipping in. He pulled out his silenced gun, shooting the two guards at the end of the hall with barely any noise. Their bodies dropped soundlessly and Ryan kept moving. He systematically took out the entire crew (although, it was a small crew and they weren’t exactly a challenge) until only the leader was left. 

Ryan opened the office door, decided to forgo silence for a dramatic entrance. And as he stood there, watching the man’s eyes widen in fear, he smiled under his mask. The man was dead before he even had a chance to scream. 

Ryan grabbed the hard drive, tucking it in his pocket before he decided to leave a message. And with a whistle, he left the warehouse full of dead bodies and climbed into the getaway car minutes before the warehouse erupted in flames. 

-

It didn’t take long for Ramsey to hire the infamous Vagabond. And it took even less time for the streets to be buzzing with the fact that the Mad Mercenary finally got with the biggest crew in Los Santos. 

Ryan kept building up his reputation for the crew but slowly, he started to trust them more and more. He met and got to know all of the crew members. Gavin (or Vav, the hacker who was known for taking crew apart with a single click of a button) was the crew ‘dumbass’ as Geoff had so lovingly dubbed him. He pestered Ryan any time Ryan was in the penthouse, and was the only one not fazed by the Vagabond getup.

Gavin was the first one to see his face. 

“Ryan, you’re bloody handsome!” Ryan just laughed, and Gavin smiled wider than Ryan had ever seen. The two made a strange pair, but it worked. And Ryan trusted Gavin with his life.

-

The next person to see his face was Ray, and it was totally on accident.

“Hey Ryan do you have any spare-” Ray stopped as he looked up and noticed Ryan was in the middle of putting his face paint on, with little success.

“You’re doing it wrong,” Ray said, before grabbing the paint and making Ryan sit on the edge of the tub. From then on, Ray always did Ryan’s face paint before any mission. And Ryan began trusting Ray too, with his weird jokes and deadpan comments that sent the entire crew into hysterics. 

-

Jack and Geoff saw Ryan’s face together. The three were in a meeting when Ryan sighed and tore off his mask. Both of them had been giving him looks the entire meeting, and frankly he was tired of it. Besides, Ryan loved making an entrance and shocking people. It was his speciality. 

Geoff stopped, took a sip of whiskey, and continued talking. Jack just kept narrowing her eyes at Ryan’s face before shaking her head and throwing her hands up in defeat. 

And so, Ryan slowly felt like he was finally finding a home again. A family.

-

The last person to see Ryan’s face was Michael, although that didn’t surprise Ryan much. Michael was the protective one of the crew, although his constant yelling and anger didn’t really portray that. But Ryan knew the second he met Michael that he would never trust him. 

It was on a mission. Ryan and Michael went in alone, and Michael grumbled about it the whole time, which Ryan decided to tune out. It should have been simple. An in and out, something that literally anyone could do. 

But they ended up in a massive shootout with 30 guys against the two of them. And then Ryan got shot. 

Michael ended up killing every person in that room and dragging Ryan out to their vehicle, the whole time distracting Ryan. 

“Come on you idiot, you better not die on my ass! Geoff is gonna kill me, and I’ll kill you in hell if you die!” Ryan smiled at Michael’s words before shedding the mask and grabbing Michael’s hand to steady him. 

Michael looked down at Ryan, mostly out of shock at the sudden grab of his hand, but he was even more shocked when he saw Ryan’s face. 

“I trust you Michael.”

-

Ryan had been with the crew 2 years now and he had never felt this happy in his entire life. But he knew something was missing, always nagging at the back of his mind. And he never stopped looking. He spent his insomnia nights looking and looking, just for a glimpse or hint of that mess of black hair or winning smile.

Every night he turned up empty handed. It was only when Geoff found him one night while on his way for a drink because he couldn’t sleep, that Ryan finally confided in Geoff. 

Ryan told the whole story, from before he left to when Geoff found him. And it took a while, but Geoff listened, not saying a word until Ryan finished. After he was done, Ryan let his head fall into his hands. 

Geoff stood up, grabbed his laptop, and settled in next to Ryan. 

“What are you doing?” Ryan mumbled, looking up at Geoff. 

“I’m helping you search idiot. Your brother obviously learned from the best, so I have a feeling finding him is going to be more than a one man job,” Geoff just focused his attention back on the screen. Ryan smiled, and the two went to work. 

-

It was a while before they found anything. Eventually they recruited Gavin and kept a special program running that would look out if Trevor happened to enter the system in any way. Ryan and Geoff continued running through security cameras, and kept an ear out on the streets for anything. 

It was pure luck, actually, that they found him. 

The crew was planning a heist, something small. It was a way for them to get a few extra thousand that they needed for the next heist. 

So when three assholes interrupted their heist, it was safe to say Geoff was more than pissed. 

“Hey asshole! You better come back here with out money, right now!” Geoff yelled, running after some kid. Ryan recognized where he was going, and ran to cut him off. As the kid was checking behind him, he ran right into Ryan who knocked him out. 

The locked the kid up in their torture room and Gavin dug up everything he could on who he was. 

“The Stream Team, huh?” Geoff said, glancing over at the kid who was slowly blinking away his drowsiness. Ryan only nodded, still raking his eyes over ‘Zed.’

Something about him was familiar, and he couldn’t place it. But he didn’t want to hurt the kid, not yet. Something about Zed reminded Ryan of himself, so they let him be. 

Ryan tried to get him to give up the money, or give them anything to work with, but the kid was determined to be as difficult as possible and Ryan was slowly losing his temper. 

“Geoff, if he doesn’t give us anything soon, I’m going to use every fucking tactic I know on him,” Ryan growled as he stalked around the penthouse. Geoff just sipped his drink, looking like he knew something Ryan didn’t. Ryan glared at Geoff as he stopped his pacing. 

“What? Got anything wise to say boss?”

“I’m just surprised you haven’t realized it yet,” Geoff said, taking another long sip from his drink as he stared at Ryan.

“What?” Ryan narrowed his eyes and debated whether or not it would be worth it to punch Geoff. 

“Idiot. Go take off his mask and come back to me.”

-

“Look Zed, we really don’t want to hurt you or your buddies. Just give my boss the money and go back home,” Ryan tried to sound as sympathetic as possible, keeping his simmering anger below the surface. It wouldn’t be good if he let the Vagabond instincts take over. 

“I don’t have a home. It left a long time ago,” Zed looked down, and the only emotion Ryan felt was loss. This kid had obviously lost something, something so important and Ryan felt it in those words alone. 

Before he knew it, Ryan was moving close to Zed. He was looking at his face, really looking at it. And Ryan reached up to tear the bandana off his face. 

“What?” Ryan stuttered out, as he leaned away from Zed. But that wasn’t his name. God, Ryan should’ve recognized who he was talking to sooner. 

“Trev?” Ryan muttered quietly, looking down at his brother with a mixture of emotions. He saw the recognition dawn on Trevor’s face, before he snapped his head up to look at Ryan. 

“You can’t be. You-you….everyone thought you died! I searched, but you can’t be real! You were gone…” Trevor whispered out the last part, his voice breaking and his eyes looking close to tears. Ryan was trying to keep his own tears down as he stared at his brother, the person he’d been looking for for so long. 

“Please tell me it’s you.”

Ryan took off his mask slowly, showing his face to the one person he had trusted his entire life. It was almost ironic how he showed his face to his brother last.

“Trevor, I’m...god I’m so sorry for leaving you like that-” 

“Ryan, I don’t care anymore. I’m just glad you’re alive,” Ryan wanted to laugh and cry. He missed his brother so much and now he was here.

Before Ryan could really process it, he was untying Trevor and the two were locked in a hug. And it had been so long, so long since he held his brother like this. Ryan remembered the first time Trevor had gotten rejected by a girl, and he held him the same way. With that desperation and love, with hope of good things to come.

Of course, at that moment the doors were busted down. Two guys stood there, looking positively livid while Michael and Gavin attempted to hold them back. Ryan registered that the short guy was yelling at Trevor, but Ryan didn’t really care.

He finally had his brother back.


End file.
